


osaka

by indiefilms



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Missed Chances, Non-Linear Narrative, Vignette, angst with an ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29974050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiefilms/pseuds/indiefilms
Summary: When you ask someone what it feels to feel, they will answer this. And there are instances when words cannot fully determine the significance of anything. Of something. Of everything. Words are not enough, as they say, but so are actions, which means they aren’t one level better. If you ask someone how they think of someone they’ve never truly met and never known their appearance, they will give you nothing more than a shrug before they make a move to change the conversation.( hold my hand and i'll ask you, is it worth to walk through pain? )
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu
Kudos: 10





	osaka

**Author's Note:**

> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/261B4DwjDA5ZyjTwDVQela?si=04e8c1ea184241c3)

* * *

**_Dear Ninja Shoyou,_ **

_If you’re wondering why this letter will be sent later than usual, it’s because I received your previous one a little later than usual. I don’t know why, but I think it’s because I was out when it first came._

_Here’s your daily Hyogo update:_

_I live in Kobe now, with my twin brother. He’s moving here closer to his restaurant, where he’ll also meet his penpal from Aichi Prefecture. The weather is nice. I’m gonna help him with his business for extra money, too, so I moved. The countryside will be missed. Kita-san and Aran-kun told me the fields are bountiful._

_Here’s your daily Me update:_

_Recently, I’ve been feeling out of place. My brother is most likely settling down with his penpal if they’re going to end well as lovers. Either he’ll move to Aichi, Tokyo or stay here in Kobe. Kita-san and Aran-kun are saving up for a wedding ceremony in Osaka. My friends from Tokyo are also considering marriage._

_I don’t know why. They’re still young but they’re all thinking about weddings :/ I feel out of place because some voice in me tells me that I haven’t done much for myself. In this stage of adulthood, there’s only so much that I have done for myself when I can definitely do more._

_Guess you can say I’m afraid of this after all. I’m afraid of what the future has for someone like me._

_Also, are you sure you don’t need help? I can ask someone to help you there. You can’t go to South America without a firm figure around you. I can recommend some people but can’t completely accompany you since applying for visa is expensive and unlike you, I don’t have enough savings :D_

_Feel free to send me letters as often as you can, Ninja Shoyou. Perhaps someday I’ll send you one personally._

**_Yours and hoping to see you,_ **

**_Tsum-Tsum_ **

* * *

There is a bright alleyway in some city in Osaka that leads through the other side of the street. Several potted plants decorate the dull, chipping walls, as well as a bench against the wall of the flower shop.

Different people pass by it, with some skaters speeding into the alleyway. The view from the main street through the other side at the other end of the alleyway is a man with blond hair and tired eyes, Miya Atsumu is his name. Now as we look where he’s headed, the nearby shop of Bouncing Ball comes into vision.

He walks in, two workers turning their heads at him with smiles. “Miya?”

“Which Miya?”

“The blond Miya is Osamu, right?”

“No, I’m Atsumu,” Atsumu corrects, inserting his hands into his pockets. Worn out ones, because the pockets have holes. “Anyway, I’m looking for Kozume?”

The two guys glance at each other before turning to him again. “He’s not here, actually. Kozume’s parents are handling his business on behalf of him because he’s going to take a degree somewhere in North America.”

A quick pause in thought buffers the actions of Atsumu’s mind. He smiles shortly, then says, “Ah, okay. Well, I guess I’ll come back sometime soon. See you guys around.”

He might just never come back.

* * *

**_Dear Tsum-Tsum,_ ** ****

_Would it be safe to surf on the waves of a tsunami?_

_I’ve been planning to go to Brazil for a long time which is why I saved up. And it’s okay, Tsum-Tsum! Nothing much is going on in here except Oikawa-san told me he has enough money for Argentina. Kageyama-kun is tenacious about Italy, even though the funeral of his grandfather took some funds. His sister Miwa is going with him, by the way._

_Here’s your daily Miyagi update:_

_After work, I went to the beach. It was already afternoon that time but the moon hadn’t appeared yet. I laid on the sand and nearly slept if it weren’t for the hermit crab that started crawling on my face. The crashing of waves were so soothing, though. I should take you here before I leave, if I have the time to do so._

_Here’s your daily Me update:_

_You know I’m not really that rich, right? So I have part time jobs. My little sister wants to start working, too, but mom said no. Ever since the divorce of my parents, we haven’t really gotten enough in our deposit. My dad supports us, still, but mom doesn’t want to ask money from him anymore. I don’t want her to work. She gets tired easily. I always tell her, “I got it, Mom!! You can just relax!!” and then it would take longer to convince her._

_But don’t fret, Tsum! I’m not overworking myself. I took a vocational course and they’re giving me money. If I go to Brazil for the program and I end up doing well there, I won’t have to work a lot of jobs._

_Lastly, how are you doing? I might visit Hyogo soon so give me some intel ;)_

_Yours and shall always be,_

_Ninja Shoyou_

_(You’re my only penpal ever bwahaha)_

* * *

Shoyou drove his bike to Oikawa’s place, where he found him and Kageyama arguing. The thing about arguments is that everyone else becomes a nuisance, or at least they feel they are, so Shoyou moved out of their way and kept pedalling.

Days later, the young man finds himself amidst Osaka, duffel bag slung across his shoulder, eyes wandering around. He doesn’t know what impulse brought him here, and why he even went here when he didn’t have enough money to leisurely take a train towards here.

It’s past afternoon when he comes, around a quarter to four. Everything is new to him. The scenery, people, the way he feels like he’s back to ground zero with so tiny knowledge about this place. He doesn’t know which bakery offers the tastiest bread or which market stall sells the finest meat. Doesn’t know which person can offer him what he needs or which one is actually a criminal.

He sits on the bench in the alleyway, looking right and left, at the two ends of the streets. A Bouncing Ball staff is diagonally across him, leaning against the wall with the sole of his right feet against the painted cement, smoking. This person has the most peculiar hairstyle Shoyou has ever seen in his life.

And then said person notices him. “Are you new here?”

_He never looked like a local._ “No.”

The black-haired man scoffs, “Oh really? Ever heard of Kuroo Tetsurou?”

_Who the fuck._ Shoyou lets the frown cover his face for too long so that it lets the stranger know he’s lying. The other cackles, dropping his cigarette on the ground and steps on it. “I _am_ Kuroo Tetsurou. Since you’re not from here, you should go to Kabumoto’s Eatery. It’s the closest eatery to go to when you’re not from here and the people there are nice.”

“Thanks!” Shoyou stands up, warning a head pat from the much taller guy named Kuroo. “I’ll head off now. See you around!”

But he’s not going to see him. This is the first and last time he’ll be in Osaka.

* * *

At night, the city goes to sleep but the people stay alive.

Here, you know them, but they don’t know each other. They talk like this isn’t their first time.

Kabumoto’s Eatery is hidden in the outskirts of the city, where the desaturated greenish light makes a patch of green when you look at the city from a helicopter.

There are plenty of empty tables and Miya Atsumu takes one. With him is a bowl of miso soup, a spoon and bottled water. He eats peacefully, occasionally looking at the sky, or at the road.

Even with several empty tables offered to him, Hinata Shoyou occupies the seat in front of Miya Atsumu, who looks at him with droopy eyes and the corners of his mouth damp with soup. “Hello, good evening.”

“Yeah.” The blond seems less enthused.

Shoyou perseveres, forearms and hands pressed against the table, head on top of his grouped fingers. Eyes looking up, he smiles at Atsumu. The latter looks down at him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He continues to eat, cheeks puffed with the steamed siomai he ordered alongside the soup.

“You from here?”

“No.”

“So am I.”

Silence. “Why are you here?”

“For exploration,” Shoyou replies. _For someone I know who lives next door._ But he doesn’t say that.

Atsumu squints when he looks at Shoyou. The young man is bright, too much so, but endearing. He looks warm, feels warm, heavily familiar but stranger than whom he thinks he could have been. “You?” Asks Shoyou.

“For a job, I guess,” is an answer, and it only is an answer. “I feel like a burden to my brother.”

“I’m sure you aren’t,” Shoyou counters. “You’re just afraid of… something.”

“I’m not.”

The corduroy material of Atsumu’s jacket appears colder than Shoyou himself. To the former, he isn’t as scorchingly hot as the sun, the type that’ll burn his skin. Shoyou, per se, is like human touch — warm in the sense that it gives him comfort. Hot but not enough to burn.

“Wanna go to South America,” Shoyou slurs. “I _am_ going to South America. Very soon.”

“Oh yeah?” He knows someone but he isn’t sure if he really does. “I know someone who will, too. You guys can go together. But I still don’t know what he looks like.”

“Penpals?”

“Yep.”

“What do you think he looks like?”

When you ask someone what it feels to _feel,_ they will answer this. And there are instances when words cannot fully determine the significance of anything. Of something. Of everything. Words are not enough, as they say, but so are actions, which means they aren’t one level better. If you ask someone how they think of someone they’ve never truly met and never known their appearance, they will give you nothing more than a shrug before they make a move to change the conversation.

Shoyou sighs when Atsumu does that. “If I ever meet him, I think he’s the type of person who’ll tell you so many details in his life that you’d eventually think you’ve always been part of it.”

Atsumu can stare, but nothing comes after that. His miso soup goes stale once the fiery heat steams the emotions that rule the colors of his eyes. Though he is not angry, Shoyou knows he’s not numb. In fact, he might just have been on the verge of emitting too much emotion.

“When I go back from Brazil, I’ll make sure to help you meet him, because you’re dumb not to ask for his picture.”

Fate is cruel for not making the Hyogo native hear it the first time. “Huh? Sorry, I spaced out.”

“When I go back, I’ll make sure you’ll meet him, because you’re a dumbass for not asking for his picture.” Atsumu laughs at this, but surely you are not, because he could have said his personal farewell to Shoyou if he figured everything out.

They part ways when Shoyou decides to leave Osaka. Their trains are an hour apart.

* * *

**_Dear Tsum-Tsum,_ **

_When Shoyou lands in Brazil, droplets of the sun sink into his skin. He becomes like a sunflower in the field of roses. On the first day, he loses his wallet, and he stubbornly tries to find it even when the roads lead to places his palms don’t have written on them._

_He meets his true self in the beach, on the sand dunes, at the very shore where his feet embrace the calm water. The ocean welcomes him to his new home._

_Things don’t work out easily, that’s how it happens here. A similar alleyway from the one in Osaka has a bright passage, a bench beside large pots of plants, and a smoking employee leaning against the wall. Through the long way, from this street, you can see Shoyou on the other side, pedalling his bike with a backpack of orders giving an Atlas-esque challenge to his back._

_The letter he received from Tsum-Tsum came on the day he’s taking the bus to the airport. So when he finally arrived, he was somehow sure this letter he’d give to him wouldn’t be reaching Tsum-Tsum as quick as before._

_He wants to see him someday, at the very least. It doesn’t matter if they just pass by each other or they are only in the same area. He’s at the other side of the world, and Shoyou thinks about him every night when Tsum-Tsum is probably awake._

_This might be the last letter, too, if the world becomes cruel and Shoyou loses his ability to weave words together. In case it is the last letter that he’ll give to Tsum-Tsum, he wants to say:_

**_You don’t have to hold back, Tsum-Tsum, and you also don’t have to worry about holding back. The future has always been scary, just as it is when you try to look at the past and see the things you never realized were mistakes. Just live in the moment, take your time. The pace your friends and your brother are taking doesn’t have to be as fast or as slow as yours. Breathe, and you’ll run freely._ ** ****

_And he wants to scream at the top of his lungs ‘_ **_I’VE ALWAYS BEEN PROUD OF YOU, TSUM-TSUM!!’,_ ** _and so he does, when he reaches the top of a mountain he visits with Oikawa Tooru and Oikawa Tobio._

_He hopes that there will be a day when he and Tsum-Tsum will watch the same sunset together again, miles and miles apart, but closer and closer with their hearts._

**_Yours (like the sun, the moon and the stars),_ **

**_Hinata Shoyou (Ninja Shoyou)_ **

* * *

In the Miya household, a mailman knocks on the gate in the absence of a mailbox. An old man who looks slightly identical to his son who trails behind him opens the gate and asks the mailman, “Who’s this for?”

“Um,” the mailman trails, glancing at the back of the letter. _“For someone I know well enough to take his memory to Brazil?”_

“The fuck?”

“No, I think I’ve got it,” Osamu says, walking past his father to accept the letter. “My brother moved to Tokyo, sadly. I don’t want to read this letter and nor should anyone at home, but thanks for bringing this here. I hope he comes home soon.”

The mailman is gone.

The thing is, Atsumu fails to go home as early as Osamu hoped, and it takes a couple of months before Atsumu realizes he’s been hurt all this while by a pinned envelope on the corkboard Osamu keeps in his room.

* * *

Before they part, this is what Atsumu tells Shoyou:

“You look like someone I refuse to love deeply.”

“Why?”

“I don’t have the courage to stretch my affection to the other side of the world,” Atsumu says.

“You look like someone I once knew, too.”

“Past tense?”

Shoyou stops walking, then turns to smile at him. “I’m scared of knowing him too much. I might set my passport on fire.”

**Author's Note:**

> also known as a failed attempt to transform a letter into a montage of scenes, to generate colors in this fic like synesthesia, and to do the scene timeline the way wong kar wai would. i watched happy together before writing most of this, so i guess you know how it went haha.
> 
> no part 2. some things to be that way.


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